"Sell a little healthy raw milk to a willing consumer, and you can expect cops to burst through the door with their guns drawn -- but you can pass off tainted meat on unsuspecting customers all day long, and the feds won't do a thing about it.
Case in point: The latest study in Clinical Infectious Diseases, which showed that up to HALF of all supermarket meat is contaminated with bacteria -- and half of those are resistant to multiple antibiotics.
Researchers bought 136 packages of beef, chicken, pork, and turkey from 26 supermarkets in five cities -- and what they found would even make someone with an iron stomach a bit queasy.
Tests revealed that 47 percent of the meat was contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus. Nearly all of the samples were resistant to one antibiotic, and 52 percent were resistant to at least three different drugs.
And believe it or not, that's not even the worst news -- because S. aureus doesn't even make the Top 10 list of the U.S.'s leading pathogens.
Americans are routinely infected by campylobacter from poultry, toxoplasma from pork, and E. coli from beef, just to name a few. All told, the top 14 pathogens are responsible for nearly 9 million illnesses a year, including 55,678 hospitalizations and 1,322 deaths.
Super Bacteria Found In Half Of Supermarket Meat Samples.
But wait -- because that's STILL not the worst news.
Overall, food poisoning sickens up to a quarter of all Americans every year –- leading to some 325,000 hospitalizations and up to 5,000 deaths that we know of. Who knows how big the real numbers are.
You may call it "contaminated meat," but I call it "biological warfare."
This is a bigger national crisis than airline safety, terrorism, or natural disasters -- and the FDA and USDA won't do a thing about it. But you can.
Many of these diseases and infections begin at factory farms -- festering stinkholes where animals live in filth, eat filth, and die in filth.
Along the way, they're pumped so full of so many drugs that you get a dose with every bite.
If you can't get your meats direct from a small farm, find a good butcher who does. Going organic is often a waste of money with many products -- but in this case, it's worth every last cent.
U.S. beef packed with drugs, metals and poisons
Want some antibiotics? Don't waste time with your doctor -- just head to the supermarket. You'll find a wide selection of drugs... but they won't be in the pharmacy section. They'll be in the meats department.
The USDA's own Office of the Inspector General released a report showing that American beef is routinely contaminated with drug residue, toxic heavy metals, and actual poison.
If you're looking for a recall, don't hold your breath. Even when the government knows they're contaminated, the meat is often shipped off and sold before the test results come back!
The report lists four specific instances in 2007 and 2008 when tests revealed enough veterinary drugs in meat to cause stomach, nerve, or skin problems in the humans who might eat it... but there wasn't a single attempt to recall it.
You can read the full details on page 29 of the report.
But when it comes right down to it, the drugs in the meat are the least of your worries. Toxic heavy metals are routinely found in the meat sold to you and your family. Don't expect that to change any time soon, either. Because as it turns out, no guidelines exist that ban things like copper and arsenic from your meat.
"In 2008, a producer self-reported that arsenic had been mistakenly ingested by his cattle, and voluntarily withheld contaminated animals from the food supply after they were slaughtered and tested positive for arsenic poisoning," the report reads.
"If the producer had not acted voluntarily, FSIS would not have had a basis to stop distribution of this meat once it was in commerce."
The FSIS is the Food Safety and Inspection Service, the deliberately crippled arm of the FDA that can only watch as arsenic, copper, and other toxins enter the food chain.
Think this is going to get better? Think again: The feds are CUTTING $10 million from the USDA's meat and poultry inspection budget."
Happy eating.
Fuming over factory farms,
Article by William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.
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